The development of skin rashes is the most common adverse event observed in cancer patients treated with epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitors such as erlotinib.
These findings indicate that EGFR -216G>T genotype is a predictive marker for the development of skin rash and diarrhoea in paediatric patients treated with gefitinib.
Thus, although underpowered, our preliminary data suggest that SNP-216 polymorphism of the EGFR gene could be useful in predicting tumor response and the appearance of severe skin rash might also be associated.
Variability in skin rash was best explained by a multivariate logistic regression model incorporating the trough erlotinib plasma concentration (P = .034) and the EGFR intron 1 polymorphism (P = .044).